then flashed white blindingly. “And you have distinguished yourself. You are the only woman ever to try to refuse me.”
And he flashed white on that. It amused him.
“What do you want of me?” I asked. “Only the night?”
“Many nights. And many days. I’ll continue your teaching—help you live as a fighter among us. As I have said, you will be Tehkohn when you leave me. Tehkohn, and your own person, not dependent on others to guide or guard you.”
I frowned, re-evaluating him in spite of myself. “I will be free? It will be as though I had some blue in my coloring?”
“Yes.”
Watching him, I suddenly realized that if he closed his eyes, they would probably vanish entirely. As it was, he seemed to look through slanted holes in thick fur. “You should have told me that before,” I said. “That I would be free, I mean.”
He hesitated. “It was what I had planned for you but I was not certain that it was what you wanted, that it would calm you.”
I said nothing. I was calmer now because I was able to control my reaction to his appearance, but there was no need to tell him that.
“And anyway,” he said, whitening, “I have never bargained for a mate before. I had to find my way.” He pulled me back on the bed, clearly ready now to see how good a bargain he had made.
He covered me with the thick, very soft blanket of his fur and hurt me as he forced his way into my body, an intruder too large and much unwelcome. Alien as we were to each other, he must have been able to read my pain in my expression.
“I always give pain before I give pleasure,” he said. “Your body will accustom itself to me.”
And if it didn’t, that was my problem. I put my teeth together and closed my eyes and waited for it to be over. He startled me once, bit me just at the throat. Not hard, not painfully, but he let me feel his teeth more than I would have preferred. I was surprised enough to grab a handful of his head fur to pull his head away. But in doing that, I looked at him and saw that his body had gone luminescent white. He continued to bite me, but more gently.
I let go of his fur, smoothed it unnecessarily. Left alone, it would smooth itself but I found it pleasant to touch. His one good feature.
“You like my fur,” he said later as we lay together, side by side.
“To touch,” I said. “It’s good to touch.”
He took one of my hands and put it into his mane. I felt the fur, the flesh beneath. There was a neck there, completely hidden. And broad as the shoulders were, they were not as broad as they looked.
“I find your smoothness pleasing too,” he said. “Good to touch.” He began to whiten a little and I realized that my hand exploring his mane was giving him pleasure. He closed his eyes—and they did vanish. There was no sign in what seemed now an even surface of fur that he had ever had eyes. Not even a slight indentation. I shuddered and put my head against his shoulder so that I would not have to look at him. I could get used to his strangeness. I was already getting used to it. But there were some things about him that would probably always be alien to me.
On the second night of Jules’s withdrawal, Diut returned to the Mission colony.
Alanna had spent most of the day sitting with Jules. He was in pain now, perspiring, vomiting, tossing. But at that, Neila said he was having an easier time than Alanna had had. Still, Nathan wanted someone with him at all times. Alanna had not minded the duty. Neila had her regular housework to do. Alanna had broken her watch only to take food to the Tehkohn prisoners. Finally, though, Neila had relieved her and sent her off to bed.
She went to her room sleepily, carrying a lamp and feeling strangely alone now that she was cut off from the sounds of Jules’s suffering. As much as she hated to see him in pain, she realized that it was easier to be with him and be able to see for herself that he was still alive.
She put her lamp on the chest near her bed and turned to close the door. Not until it was closed did she realize that she was not alone in the room. She froze, ceasing even to breathe, every sense alert to pinpoint the direction from which the first warning sound had come.
Somewhere in the shadows, Diut said her name.
She identified the voice and the direction from which it came in the same instant and turned just in time to see him materialize from a wall.
She crossed the room to him quickly in silent relief and joy. He caught her by the shoulders and looked at her for a moment, holding her away from him. Then she struggled free of his hands and buried herself in his fur.
Mentally, she gave him all her trouble—her heavy responsibility to the colony, the doubted loyalties, the Garkohn danger. Let him hold them for a while. He was accustomed to such things. It was only a game played within her own mind, but she felt as though she had shed a great weight, as though she could relax completely for the first time since her return to the settlement.
She spoke finally, softly. “You’ve been home?”
“Yes.”
She drew back from him now, waiting. They sat down together on the bed.
“The defeat was bad,” he said, “but not as bad as it first seemed. The escape passages were created to be overlooked by invaders. Most of them were.”
She nodded, remembering that she had fled into one of these passages herself when Garkohn invaded the dwelling. She had run to the inner apartments where the young children were left in the care of artisan families. But somehow, despite the deliberately confusing maze of corridors, the Garkohn had gotten there ahead of her and it was too late.
